Preparations are underway for the grand opening of the new United States embassy to Israel in Jerusalem. While the President wont be able to attend as he prepares for his summit with North Korea, Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump have arrived to do the honors along with a number of other delegates. But not everyone is quite so thrilled with this development, particularly in some parts of the European Union. They were preparing to put forward a resolution condemning the embassy move, delivering a statement which was explicitly designed to embarrass and isolate the Trump administration ahead of the ceremony.

That nasty little poison pill fell apart this weekend, however, when three member nations blocked the resolution. The objection was led by Hungary, which was quickly joined by Romania and the Czech Republic. (Axios)

Hungary, the Czech Republic and Romania, in coordination with Israel, today blocked a joint EU statement criticizing the relocation of the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem, Israeli officials and European diplomats told me.

Behind the scenes: The initiative to publish the statement was led by France and several other EU member states. Israeli officials say the goal was to present to the U.S. a common position against the move by all 28 member states, and to embarrass and isolate the Trump administration ahead of Mondays ceremony.

It turns out that the driving force behind the original resolution was French President Emmanuel Macron. Nice ally, eh? And it was only a few weeks ago that he was over here getting all touchy-feely with Trump amid speculation that he was playing some sort of flattery game to advance his position with the United States. So its perhaps not all that surprising that the revolt would be led by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban who has been no fan of the socialist bent of the European Union and frequently acted as a thorn in the side of Brussels.

Its also unsurprising that the Czechs and the Romanians would join in with Orban on this. Both countries are currently reviewing plans to possibly move their embassies to Jerusalem as well. That put a bit of a damper on the three points listed in the resolution, which were as follows:

Jerusalem should be the capital of both states  Israel and the future state of Palestine.

The final status of Jerusalem should be negotiated and only determined through negotiations between the parties.

The member states of the EU will not follow the U.S. and will not move their embassies to Jerusalem.

Heres one question for Macron and the rest of the EU leaders who were prepared to go along with this insult. Why is it anyones business where the U.S. Embassy to Isreal is located except for the United States and Israel? The embassy can be wherever both countries mutually decide it should be. And trying to tell us where to locate our embassy looks rather embarrassing for Brussels when they cant even enforce such an order on their own member nations. Perhpas minding your own business would be the better course of action here.

Poster Comment:

Too funny to see the EU's smelly little plot to embarrass Trump so deftly foiled by Orban.

I thought it was funny to see Orban crap all over Macron's petty plot to grab a few cheap headlines.

The EU thought it was admitting satellites.

But the NATO alliance is led by the USA, not Brussels.

The smaller states of the East that joined both did not intend to be freed of the Soviets only to hand their countries over to the French, British and Germans. They intend to be free states - protected by NATO - and rich states - economically within the EU.

And they are perfectly willing to play their security chief, the USA, off against their economic chiefs, in Brussels, to make their own way forward.

I just was into the schadenfreude when those eastern states flipped them off and ruined their little scheme to condemn the new US embassy with a "unified voice".

I wouldn't be surprised if these three countries announce they are ready to move their embassies as well. And I bet the Israelis will give them a prime embassy location too.

Trump and Bibi have paved the way for this with advance work. The Romanian prez got an early WH visit with Trump. The Czechs and Hungarians are also recognized. And Israeli diplomacy is quite strong in eastern Europe. Bibi had a very successful tour in Hungary last year, spent 3-4 days there, right around the time they were passing laws to ban Soros and his subversive organizations. Israel is helping the Romanians try to establish a little Silicon Valley of their own, a regional tech hub like the ones that have worked well for Finland.

I can think of others, like a few of the Baltics, perhaps Austria, moving their embassies as well. When that EU diplomatic dam breaks, it will break fast. In fact, this will pose a key test of EU authority to force members to do its will in foreign policy. The EU bigwigs may regret picking this little diplo fight with eastern Europe and America if it makes the EU look even more toothless and weak.

---------

Too soon for any stories to be published but AP just tweeted that the USSC struck down all bans on state-sponsored sports betting.

In fact, this will pose a key test of EU authority to force members to do its will in foreign policy. The EU bigwigs may regret picking this little diplo fight with eastern Europe and America if it makes the EU look even more toothless and weak.

The EU is, above all, an ECONOMIC alliance. When it comes to standards and patents and regulatory inspection frameworks, of course all of Europe has to play by the same rules. The EU, and the Common Market before that, have been great at elevating the GDP of the free European countries.

When it comes to foreign policy and defense policy, though, the desire of the old imperial powers, France and the UK, particularly France, to turn the EU into a base of international political power is a weak game. Europe simply doesn't have the military power to do that. Nor does it have the military record. America is utterly credible in the military sphere. We always beat Europeans, every time. The only people we DIDN'T beat was the Vietnamese, and who cares? It may drive crazy,American armchair warriors who want to speak of an unbroken record by redefining words, but nobody else cares, or should.

The US is the prime mover in military affairs, and military power is the prime mover, or backup force, in all international relations. Sure, economic power matters, but it's military power is still the alpha.

So, of course the Eastern Europeans want to be active members of the EU for economic reasons. But when it comes to military affairs, the EU is small beer and all posturing. The USA is the King, and currying favor with the King on matters of concern to the King is the way to gain favors from Washington that Paris and Brussels cannot match.

I was looking at a democracy simulator last night, setting all of the policies, laws and taxes for the USA. It was interesting. I don't buy all of the premises built into the game logic, but it does let one simulate all sorts of different things.

Faced with the social issues and their religious and police and policy and law cross-effects, I realized that - when I am at the controls and am able to set the law where my heart and head tell me they should be.

Here's a litany of related issues: Abortion - to save the life of the mother only.

Evolution/Creation - teach both in public school, but heavily favor evolution as the scientific answer.

Same-sex stuff: tolerate it. Don't care.

Gambling: legalize it, no limits. Tax the proceeds as any other income.

Prostitution: legalize it all and tax it as any other income.

Drugs: legalize pot and tax the hell out of it. Keep stronger stuff illegal - too addictive and destructive. - treat drug addiction as a medical issue, not a crime.

Prayer and religious symbols in school: permit them, but do not allow schools to force them.

People for whom drinking, smoking (tobacco or pot) and gambling are religious issues would be outraged. Don't care. Their religion is wrong on the matter, and they don't get to rule.

Prostitution and gay shit are immoral in my eyes and the eyes of my religion too. Don't care. We don't live in a theocracy. When my church ruled the roost, we burnt people for heresy and witchcraft. Religious law is not secular law. Religious law cannot be allowed to govern human secular law of sex.

Abortion is murder, so we must stop that.

I am waaaay too tolerant to be either a Protestant or a conservative, or a "good" Catholic. So what?

If people want to gamble, let them gamble. I don't care. It's none of my business. It's not the federal government's business, and it's not really the state or local government's business either.

Since people won't resist the urge to pass laws and can't be persuaded, then having the Supreme Court wipe out all of that namby-pamby moralizing is fine by me. I'm done with it.

Smoke what you want. Fuck whom you want. Throw your money away however you want. I don't care. But don't kill babies. I do care about that.

So, of course the Eastern Europeans want to be active members of the EU for economic reasons. But when it comes to military affairs, the EU is small beer and all posturing. The USA is the King, and currying favor with the King on matters of concern to the King is the way to gain favors from Washington that Paris and Brussels cannot match.

You just know it's eating Macron and Merkel alive today that Orban and the Czechs and Romanians spoiled their little tantrum over our embassy move.

You just know it's eating Macron and Merkel alive today that Orban and the Czechs and Romanians spoiled their little tantrum over our embassy move.

They have a way they look at the world. There is no evangelical yahoo wing of their electorate insisting on an unreasoningly pro-Israel stance, they derive no security advantage from Israel, which is a quintessentially American ally, but they very much want good relations with the Muslim world, because they have very large Muslim constituencies, because they need oil, and because there is opportunity for them to be found in trade with rogue states.

Also, they simply don't like the in-your-face, unconstrained DEGREE of American dominance. In the EU, France, Germany and the UK all cock-block each other a lot, none can simply do as it pleases without consequences. And that makes them all feel better, because their jealousies are aroused when any member state starts to look to crawl out of the pot. The Americans act with the high-handedness that the British, French and Germans did of old, in their turn. The Germans were beaten far down, but the French and English never really were, so they are still playing balance of power games in their minds, and within Europe, they have a veto on anything. This makes them feel a tolerable equality. When the US acts unilaterally, and high- handedly, it upsets them, reminds them of their inferiorty in power and status, and causes them to want to drag the US down into line with the consensus.

Smoke what you want. Fuck whom you want. Throw your money away however you want. I don't care. But don't kill babies. I do care about that.-- Vicomte13

That's a very libertarian country you're describing. --- TC

Smoke what you want. Fuck whom you want. Throw your money away however you want. I don't care. But don't kill babies, --- knowing that women have the freedom to abort an early term fetus ----- I do care about freedom.--

This is a very libertarian country, a constitutional republic, ---- just as the founders intended....

The way I organize the police power is a blend of libertarian and authoritarian. I don't think that vices should be crimes. We've already seen that. I think that violent crime should be heavily suppressed, but I don't trust our justice system enough to have faith that executions really are of the guilty.

Also, I think that prisons currently are breeding grounds for worse crime, that there should not be private prisons or ankle bracelets, and that instead prisons should be intense coercive rehabilitation centers, with a pipeline to jobs - mostly government or agricultural - on exit.

I think that unemployment is a big deal: idle hands are the Devil's workshop, and I would rather have a substantial military, police force and general civil service of people on salary with health benefits and perfunctory administrative jobs than pay people unemployment and welfare for being idle. Housing, health care and food should come through work, not welfare, but I fully recognize that for a lot of low-skilled people, there simply do not exist commercially viable jobs in the private sector sufficient to pay the cost of housing, food, transport, medical care, child care and education.

Since I'm a Catholic, I cannot tolerate starvation and homeless.

THEREFORE, I understand that my only two REAL choices - the only choices morally acceptable to me - are heavy welfare OR a larger-than-necessary military, police force and civil service, and employment subsidies to encourage hiring. I vastly prefer a zero-unemployment, subsidized full work-force, artificially inflated by relatively do-nothing civil service jobs, than straight up welfare, unemployment, food stamps, public housing, Aid For Dependent Children, Disability, VA, etc.

To me, the difference between employing people in not-very-productive but nevertheless somewhat meaningful government jobs (having too many teachers and teachers aides, for example, or street sweepers) does provide some social benefit - kids are better supervised, and the streets are cleaner - than "saving money" by not employing them but giving them bare subsistence welfare instead.

The trouble with the bare-subsistence welfare goes past the direct misery and the untreated illness. The depression that results from being a derelict at the edge of society, unemployed and kept alive hand-to-mouth, is vastly increased rates of alcoholism - and the associated violent crime - increased depression, untreated for lack of care - increased tobacco use - and the associated cancers (which are treated by Medicaid) - child neglect, street crime and, of course, drug peddling and all of the associated addiction and crime.

In my estimation, the TOTALITY of cost in terms of injury, crime, lost man hours, destroyed lives, medical payments, prison costs, property damage and reduction of property values and tourist attraction of American cities due to unemployment and welfare is considerably more expensive than the cost of subsidized full employment.

I have been told by folks all over this site and others - maybe including you at some points - that this makes me a "socialist", but I reject the characterization. I have no ideological hobbyhorse for "The State" owning "the means of production", "because..." of some moral or philosophical reasoning. Tpaine, God bless him, reasons everything from a certain philosophical viewpoint, his notion of "The Constitution!"

But I don't really care who owns the means of production, as long as the production happens, in a reasonably clean way environmentally, and people have jobs so they can buy it and tend to their needs and their kids. That's the Christian part.

The purely pragmatic part is that if they AREN'T employed, even if pretty meaningless jobs, they WILL commit crimes - idle hands really ARE the Devil's workshop - and wreck shit, and steal shit - and depress everybody else - and welfare and incarceration cost more, on balance, than just employing people to chip paint, march with rifles, write traffic tickets, supervise kids, repair roads, pick up trash - you name it.

My immigration view is informed by this: the need to have FULL employment of Americans. If the doors are open, then the world will flood in for those jobs that make all Americans somewhere in the shade of middle class (or at least not poor). And that means an everlasting pool of poor and nothing gets better.

Far better, I think, to control the borders well and the population influx, so that we CAN employ everybody, and to provide the example for other nations. The cost of living is lower in Honduras.

Further, it is my observation of history that science and infrastructure is advanced by government. The private sector uses science government discovers, but it is government that makes the long, expensive investments into the pure sciences, and the private sector that does the much easier thing, which is to take the fruits of pure science and high tech and make it commercially marketable.

THAT is why I support the space program, and heavy funding of government labs and research in all of the basic sciences. I think it's a tragedy that the great particle accelerator was built in Europe, because in the USA it was scrapped as a cost-cutting measure.

So, while my state is libertarian - to a fault in the eyes of fundamentalist Christians - it also has a heavy governmental footprint of police, schools, health care and investment in science. It's much more like Holland or Massachussetts than Arkansas or Mississippi.

All of that stuff requires a lot of money. I believed in running a budget that is slightly in surplus, to pay down the debt however slowly. It doesn't matter that the debt be retired over decades or centuries, only that its balance be declining, all the while maintaining that structure I have named above.

And that means taxes. Now, I happen to think that taxes should be as widely and broadly cast across the whole spectrum of everything, so that they don't distort any particular thing.

I think the arguments about "double taxation" are puerile, to those who really BELIEVE the argument, and deceptive, when made by those who know better. Taxes that cut most broadly across the economy can be applied at relatively low percentages.

In this simulation, what has generally happened is that I structure the society the way I think it ought to be. We get nearly full employment, low pollution, low crime, and a small budget surplus that gradually grows. I win elections with about 65% of the vote.

But then I get assassinated, either by cabals of hardcore liberals, or hard- core capitalists. Holding the line on abortion, intelligence and immigration enrages radical liberals (Deckard got me!). Holding the line on pollution controls, working conditions and the taxes necessary to pay for it all gets the hard right mad at me. So they kill me every time, one or the other.

Of course, as complicated as the simulation is, it's just a simulation. I think that the government in the real world could be funded with a simpler and fairer tax code.

But don't kill babies, --- knowing that women have the freedom to abort an early term fetus

A fetus is a baby. No. You cannot kill it. Women have no right to solve a contraception issue by killing an unborn baby. As a society we DO have to provide the medical, educational, and eventual child care and job structure so that baby's mother can support it, and the baby can grow up to make better decisions and to go as high as his merit will allow him to go.

We do not kill people for convenience. Or to get stem cells. Or at all.

That's the difference between your libertarian constitutional republic, and a constitutional republic that puts primary value on human life. I support the latter. The former - which is the current state of affairs - is not acceptable to me.

For my part, I suppose I'm a bit of an anti-Semite, as it is currently defined.

I don't hate Jews, or Arabs, or Semitic peoples in general. But I also don't think they are unique, or special, or God's beloved children, any more than anybody else.

They, in their respective false religions (Judaism and Islam and Druze) all think they are special, and a whole set of moronic Christians believe that claptrap. But I think it's crap.

The Jewish religion is that of a tribe. The Hindus have theirs. The Alabamians have theirs. I don't really care. The Muslim religion is an aggressive, violently proselytizing ideology, a threat to world peace.

I categorically reject the concept that modern Israel is ordained by God. The destruction of biblical Israel was ordained by Jesus Christ and carried out by God in 69 AD. The day of the structure of things in the Old Testament was ended by God himself. So I see the attempts to equate the modern colony of Israel with Biblical Israel as being God-defying anti- Christian blasphemy taught by morons TO morons, and IF that is the basis for our foreign aid to Israel, I would cut it off and let Israel be wiped out.

Israel has nothing to do with the Israel of the Bible. THAT Israel was destroyed by God for rejecting Christ. The descendants of that tribe STILL reject Christ, so their religion is blasphemous and the folks who don't understand that are just wrong.

That said, the ethnicity, Jews, particularly European Jews, have been given shit by evil Christians for a millennium and a half. Given what was done to them by modern white secular European culture, without a rescue by American culture, I do consider that Jews have the right to a place to be secure.

And given the proselytizing evil and arrogance of Islam, parking it smack lick-a-dab in the Middle of Dar-es-Islam and demonstrating the toothless non-existence of Allah by his complete inability to eradicate a postage stamp state is an important lesson. It takes a long time to teach the religious lesson: YOUR GOD DOES NOT EXIST. Backwaters take forever to catch on. But the way they eventually catch on is by being blasted to hell in war, where their non-existent gods do NOTHING to stop the scientifically and economically superior foe.

So, the ethnic Jewish state there in Palestine has no religious significance in the direction of truth - Judaism is not right - BUT it sure puts the lie to Allah and the whole advancing Islam business. It causes Islam to blow itself up in distemper and shatter its teeth again and again. And that's good, because four generations of endless defeat and poverty have eventually worn out the Jordanians, the Iraqis, the Saudis, and so many others. And the "Catholic" form of Islam threat - the Shi'ites of Iran - to the "Protestant" form in Sunni Islam, has caused the rich oil states to start to speak the truth, which is that what Allah wants regarding Israel is not nearly as important as what the Arabs (and, conveniently, Allah) DON'T want regarding dominance over their religion and lives by Shi'ite Iran.

I want to see peace between Syria and Israel, because Syria is the last country that borders Syria that has not bent the knee to reality and recognized that Israel is there to stay and not worth fighting.

Get THAT war to end, and then I have to worry a lot less about terrorism in America, and I can spend a lot less on Israeli security and foreign aid.

Which means that the boobs who have messianic dreams about Israel and who think that's what our foreign aid is all about finally get their comeuppance when we stop spending that money, because it's not necessary.

Then they can bleed out the eyes about it down in Alabama and talk about how we've turned away from the "Chosen People" and will be "Left Behind". Really, it's those folks who will be left behind, and all that money we throw down the rathole of Middle Eastern war can be spent on more important things, like health care and schools and pensions.

Exactly. Stop wasting money on the Israelis and Palis and Egyptians. And the Koreans.

The world really has better things to do than allow international relations to revolve around these rather puny nations and their conflicts going back 50-70 years.

I'm sick of the whole bunch.

Yep. And that means that Assad either bends the knee or he dies. The Russians are complicating the situation right now by propping up Assad.

So THEY had better make him bend the knee, to survive. Because if instead they try to prop him up to CONTINUE to not make peace with Israel, we are stronger than Russia, we can kill Assad ourselves, and the new government we install in Syria can and will drive out the Russian naval base - and that will be the end of any permanent Russian presence in the Mediterranean. They will have no-place to anchor and resupply, and they will be forced back into the Black Sea, an utter strategic calamity.

So, Russia, if you want to keep your base, make Assad make peace and end the Syrian-Israeli war for good, and stop acting as a conduit for Iran. Otherwise we will destroy your ally, kill as many of your mercenaries as we need to, drive your fleet from the Mediterranean, and hand out an outright military defeat that you cannot answer, just as we did in Afghanistan.

No, we won't ratchet up the Ukraine business, because that's stupid, but if you get TOO threatening, we always can. We have ten times your economy, five times your military strength, and you will back down or you will be defeated, militarily, on two battlefronts. No, we are not afraid of taking you on. And no, we are not afraid that you will decide to commit national suicide because of Syria. You're not going to go to nuclear war over Tartus. We know it, and so do you.

So get real and grow up. You cannot have it your way. You CAN keep Assad, but he MUST bend the knee and make peace with Israel. Then he gets to live and you get your base. Otherwise, we kill him, defeat you, and drive you out: you get bupkis.

That will save us a ton of money and reduce a lot of stress.

And the Palestinians? Take Syria out of the picture and they can't arm themselves anymore. Then they either submit or starve. Israel can deal with them.

Which brings us to Korea. Trump is going to broker the reunification of the peninsula. Just you watch. Kim will be like Pinochet, or Hirohito. Protected. A potentate. Left alone. God can give justice to him in the end. It is far more important for the other 80 million Koreans, and us, that there be peace. That means letting Kim live a great life. Fine. Get it done, Trump.

China? Those islands they built are no prize to them. The whole region is riled against them, and unifying with us, and soon they will have Korea on their border.

The Chinese are not stupid. They have come far. They will integrate into the world system. They won't be poster boys - neither are we - but there won't be war.

That lets us turn back to our hemisphere, and our own garden, where we've got plenty to tend to that we have neglected.

I want to see peace between Syria and Israel, because Syria is the last country that borders Syria that has not bent the knee to reality and recognized that Israel is there to stay and not worth fighting. --- Get THAT war to end, and then I have to worry a lot less about terrorism in America, and I can spend a lot less on Israeli security and foreign aid. ---- Vicomte13

Exactly. Stop wasting money on the Israelis and Palis and Egyptians. And the Koreans. ---- The world really has better things to do than allow international relations to revolve around these rather puny nations and their conflicts going back 50-70 years. ------ I'm sick of the whole bunch. ----- TC

So THEY had better make him bend the knee, to survive. Because if instead they try to prop him up to CONTINUE to not make peace with Israel, we are stronger than Russia, we can kill Assad ourselves, and the new government we install in Syria can and will drive out the Russian naval base - and that will be the end of any permanent Russian presence in the Mediterranean. They will have no-place to anchor and resupply, and they will be forced back into the Black Sea, an utter strategic calamity.

We're never gonna do that.

The objective is to eject Iran from Syria. Israel and America and the Sunni monarchs will not allow Tehran to create an entrenched position all the way from Iran to the Mediterranean.

Which brings us to Korea. Trump is going to broker the reunification of the peninsula. Just you watch. Kim will be like Pinochet, or Hirohito. Protected. A potentate. Left alone. God can give justice to him in the end. It is far more important for the other 80 million Koreans, and us, that there be peace. That means letting Kim live a great life. Fine. Get it done, Trump.

I think this will be the general direction they take. A governor-for-life of the "northern province". Since Kim is already worth $5-$10 billion and has a handful of other corrupt officials, they can just model their province after the way Putin runs Russia with half-a-dozen cronies at the top and Kim as the big cheese "governor" and richest guy in Korea. And as the northern region grows economically, Kim and his circle will only get richer.

It'll be kinda corrupt but I think Korea is ready to move forward. So what if Kim gets richer? The entire country will prosper if Korea re-unites, far more than what it takes to keep Kim and a handful of his crony generals satisfied. And this solution allows them to actually go somewhere to spend all that loot, like Paris or various Asian countries.

The EU had hoped the Italian Right couldn't agree to form a power-sharing coalition.

They were dead wrong. There will be a new Right government in Italy in the next few days.

Along with the one elected a few months ago in Austria. And those troublemakers like Orban in Hungary and the others like Romania and Poland who won't follow orders from Macron who is turning into some kind of Napoleonic imposter.

Smoke what you want. Fuck whom you want. Throw your money away however you want. I don't care. But don't kill babies, --- knowing that women have the freedom to abort an early term fetus ----- I do care about freedom.--

This is a very libertarian country, a constitutional republic, ---- just as the founders intended. --- tpaine _------------------------------------

A fetus is a baby. No. You cannot kill it. Women have no right to solve a contraception issue by killing an unborn baby. ----

As a society we DO have to provide the medical, educational, and eventual child care and job structure so that baby's mother can support it, and the baby can grow up to make better decisions and to go as high as his merit will allow him to go. --- Vic

A fetus is not a baby. It is a group of living cells that have the potential to become a baby. ---- Many fetuses do not live, due to natural causes. --- Women have the right to solve a contraception issue by rejecting the fetus (aborting) before viablity, according to law. --- This law is not 'moral', according to many religions, who have the free speech right to oppose the issue.

-- They do not, nor do governments, have the right to sequester a pregnant woman to require a live birth...

Our rich republic has decided to provide the medical, educational, and eventual child care and job structure so that baby's mother can support it, and the baby can grow up to make better decisions and to go as high as his merit will allow him to go. -- I reluctantly accept this reality..

--- Most of the world does not yet have the resources to do so. -- Thus, --- they should limit their populations, correct?

I swear, it's like taking crazy pills just to read that piece. Try it. Your mouth will hang open in sheer shock.

I read it. --- Indeed, the author is crazy, but I'm not shocked, --- in fact he has some valid points: ----

"---- Trump drove the last nail into its (Europe's) coffin when he decided this week to withdraw from the nuclear deal with Iran.

What now? The United States will lurch from crisis to crisis, but Europe faces more existential questions: It has been expelled from the garden  albeit a very thorny one  maintained by U.S. military and diplomatic power and now must build a new home of its own. The European diplomats, ex-diplomats, and scholars I have spent the last few days talking to agree on that much. Theyre less sure whether Europe is up to the task.

Am I  and my interlocutors  inflating a very bad moment into a mortal one? Perhaps that would be true if the problem were only Trump. In fact, Europe ceased to be the worlds geostrategic center when the Soviet menace disappeared. The humanitarian crises of the next decade reinforced the shared values of Western nations, but 9/11 abruptly diverted the United States to an obsessive focus on the Middle East. Though Barack Obama restored the shared faith in multilateralism and institutions that George W. Bush had breached, his own interests lay more in the Pacific. He yearned to pivot away from the yawning pit of the Arab world to Asia. Obama wanted the United States to face toward the future, not the past.

The American people, meanwhile, preferred to face home. They wanted a pivot to America, and they voted for the candidate who promised to deliver it. It has thus fallen to Trump to deliver the coup de grâce to the alliance that has defined the postwar world. " -----

Trump will probably call Iran's bluff, and maybe in the process, inspire some peace making in the middle east..

Perhaps this will solve the "European diplomats, ex-diplomats, and scholars" the elites, main problem. --- A loss of power and face...

Yes, so what if Kim gets richer. People will stop getting killed. Families will reunite. Torture will end. North Korea will be a far, FAR better place, and so will South Korea. That huge fortune spent preparing for a war that would ruin all of it now goes into development.

And in time, as people move around and the wealth increases, the political power will ebb.

Hell, Kim may end up elected President of ALL of Korea if he gets the solid North, and the votes of appreciative folks in the South.

The ChiComs prove that capitalism can work just fine in Asia even with pretty fascistic rulers. And the South Koreans will not let the torture of the present day be the norm.

God will bring those who have done the most wrong to justice in the end, but 80 million people can all live better NOW. And Kim will no longer have to worry about being overthrown. He'll have the USA to back him!

I swear, it's like taking crazy pills just to read that piece. Try it. Your mouth will hang open in sheer shock.

To me, in micro, it's quite a bit like the folks who keep telling me that Trump cannot drive home the ouster of Assad and a regime change in Syria, because Russia doesn't want it.

Russia is not powerful enough to stop it. And Europe is neither united enough, nor strong enough, nor even wise enough, to go it alone.

Truth is, if Trump drives forward, he will get his way. The UN Security Council cannot STOP the US from withdrawing. So if the French, British and Germans want to keep paying Iran, they can, but the US, meanwhile, can sew up the Middle East.

Including Syria.

The CFR is acting, on the international stage, like the Lindsey Graham/Bushite Republicans are on the national scene: PRETENDING (for that's all it is - a fantasy) that they're "Deep State", national or international, can "stop" the will of the American people, which was clearly expressed by the election of Trump.

It is true, the President HIMSELF can stop it, because the American President is an elected King and has vast powers. But Trump AGREES with the people. He was elected because he is an aristocrat who thinks like the People. So he's going to drive ahead. And the people who "stand up to him" are simply going to get plowed over by the massive, invincible power of the United States moving abroad, and the invincible power of the United States President, moving internally with the intense backing of a whole lot of people.

McCain is all but dead. Graham is a weak chinned ninny. They can't stop him. Macron is young and dynamic, but the idea he is pushing, some sort of "Stop America" schtick BECAUSE we are acting unilaterally - and rightly - well, he can try. But in the end the Warsaw Pact is all going to side with America. And so might Italy, and Spain and Portugal, and Greece.

The UK may ignore it's people on Brexit, but Germany/France/UK/Russia cannot stand up to the USA/Mediterranean/Eastern Europe for very long, because if they try there will no longer BE an EU. And I doubt the Dutch, Belgians, Swiss, Luxembourgeois or Scandinavians CARE what Macron, or May, or Merkel want. The EU is good for them, but the three posturing former bigger powers are making a mess of it.

The USA is in the catbird seat, and what's more, we're actually right.

Napoleon actually had armies to unleash hell on the world. At one point he had a Navy too, and the English made a peace treaty with him.

Lot's of French folks think fondly about Napoleon's power, but they have no stomach for the actual BASIS of that power, which was that Napoleon was the closest thing to the incarnation of Mars that ever happened.

Macron is no God of War. That matters because Napoleon really was willing to sacrifice a lot of lives, with complete sang-froid. The European leaders today agonize when a terrorist gets shot, and console themselves that it had to happen. Napoleon boasted that he "could make a man want to die for a scrap of ribbon", and he meant it.

There is no leader of France, Germany or Britain (except maybe Queen Elizabeth herself and her generation, who are rapidly passing from the scene) who are willing to ask men to die for anything.

Eastern Europeans are a lot tougher. They will prevail in this, and keep Europe divided.

You know who I wanna hear from? The Swedes. If the Swedes stand up with common sense, because they're sick of getting raped, then Scandinavia will side with Eastern Europe, and Italy, and Greece, and the US will lead the day.

God will bring those who have done the most wrong to justice in the end, but 80 million people can all live better NOW. And Kim will no longer have to worry about being overthrown. He'll have the USA to back him!

Galling to see Kim rewarded in any way but it would be better than the status quo.

The Korean war must end. Korea must be reunited, as it was for thousands of years.

To me, in micro, it's quite a bit like the folks who keep telling me that Trump cannot drive home the ouster of Assad and a regime change in Syria, because Russia doesn't want it.

Not "cannot". "Won't."

And anything that replaces Assad is...likely to be as bad as Assad. Whether Sunni or Shi'a or Assad's own sect of Shi'ite-lite Islam, they'll all be about equally dreadful. Leaving Assad there will ensure that Christians will fare better though. The Assads never went out of their way to harm Christians, protected them sometimes, as Saddam Hussein did. These Ba'athist regimes were power-sharing regimes with required representation of all factions. You may recall Saddam had a Christian foreign minister at the time we invaded Iraq. That could never happen now.

Trump will not let himself get drawn anywhere near a Vietnam scenario where he gets bled dry by Russia and Iran in a pointless Syrian intervention. And given Syria's makeup and the lack of American interest there, that is the almost inevitable result.

The best thing is to kill all of ISIS in Syria, then let Israel bloody the Iranians enough for them to leave. Then we withdraw as Trump declares our fabulous and world-class victory over ISIS. Then Vlad whips off his shirt and declares himself the victor in supporting his ally Assad and also leaves Syria.

Russia just isn't that rich and they are straining to support an overseas effort like Syria. They are a shadow of what the USSR was, a source of great frustration and resentment to Pooty-Poot.

As long as we will tolerate Assad, Iran and Russia will leave if we do.

Assad Junior was never as big a foe of Israel as his father was. He'll go back to that stance if we let him. And he does have a country to rebuild for the rest of his life. It should keep him pretty busy.

Even Hezbollah is running Lebanon now, having won elections on purely domestic issues. They are becoming a normal political party, or as normal as it gets in these countries. Starting a war with Israel isn't in their interest.

When you look around the region, almost no one has a good reason or enough proximity to go to war seriously. That doesn't change the fact that the region is united against any Iranian expansions.

A fetus is a baby, and must be protected from conception to natural death.

No compromise is possible. Currently, your side prevails, by force. You will prevail as long as you have the force to prevail. If we gain the upper hand, then we will prevail, also by force.

Nobody is moving an inch, nobody persuades anybody. This is settled by the power of the gun in the hands of the police. And what the police do is settled by the Supreme Court.

The rule of 5. Get one more justice up there, or two, to replace Ginsburg and Kennedy, and there will be 5 pro-lifers. Then Roe can go down

A fetus is not a baby. It is a group of living cells that have the potential to become a baby. ---- Many fetuses do not live, due to natural causes. ---

--- Women have the right to solve a contraception issue by rejecting the fetus (aborting) before viablity, according to law. --- This law is not 'moral', according to many religions, who have the free speech right to oppose the issue.

-- Religious people do not, nor do governments, have the right to sequester a pregnant woman to require a live birth...

There is very little, if any, force involved in abortion law. You claim my -- "side prevails, by force. --- If we gain the upper hand, then we will prevail, also by force." - -- Bold statement. -- Do you really think government could force/jail pregnant women to term, until birth?

To my knowledge, no woman has ever been convicted of manslaughter of her own fetus. ------ Why do you suppose this is so?

tpaine ---- To my knowledge, no woman has ever been convicted of manslaughter of her own fetus. ------ Why do you suppose this is so?

Because you haven't looked into the legal history. --- Vic

You're making the claim that there is a legal history of women convicted of manslaughter of their own fetus. --- Can you back it up?

There is very little, if any, force involved in abortion law. You claim my -- "side prevails, by force. --- If we gain the upper hand, then we will prevail, also by force." - -- Bold statement. -- Do you really think government could force/jail pregnant women to term, until birth?

I'd say this would be unconstitutional, despite what the peanut gallery believes.